Established in 2006, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical perspectives and analysis of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society. Scroll down for links to book reviews, Native media, and more.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Mexican American Studies Department Reading List

[Note: For a chronological and comprehensive list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of
the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District,
go here. To go right to information about the National Mexican American Studies Teach-in, go here.]

Cambium Learning, Inc. conducted an audit of the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson. The findings were published in May 2, 2011. The audit took place between March 7, 2011 and May 2, 2011. [Update, Jan 16, 7:35 PM: Cambium was hired by Arizona's Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Huppenthal, district to do the audit. Cambium recommended the Mexican American Studies program be continued. The superintendent disagreed with the audit findings, and shut the program down.]

The following books are listed on Appendix Item Mexican American Studies Department Reading List of the audit of the Mexican American Studies program. I am presenting the lists here, replicating the lists as shown on the audit. News stories indicate that book in the Mexican American Studies classrooms were boxed up and removed from classrooms last week. At this point is is not known if all the books listed below were boxed and removed. They were placed in storage.

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In the video below, teacher Yolanda Sotelo (she taught in the Mexican American Studies program that was shut down last week) discusses novels she can no longer teach. They were boxed and removed. Teachers have been told that they will be monitored to make sure they do not teach those novels. Ironically, if Sotelo was teaching at Tucson's college prep school, she'd be able to teach Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me Ultima. [Video source: ThreeSonorans channel on YouTube]

Update: Tuesday, January 17, 2012, 7:00 AM CST

Brenda Norrell of Censored News has video interviews of three students at her site. Interviews were recorded at an MLK event yesterday.

In the first one, the student describes how shelves were cleared of books during class. In the second, the student points to a double standard. It is only the Mexican American Studies class and books in those classrooms that are being targeted. Those books include more than just ones by Latino/a authors. Amongst the curriculum are books by African American, Asian American, American Indian, feminist, and progressive writers. Other ethnic studies programs are being left alone. In the third video, the student talks about the importance for all Americans of knowing the histories of all Americans.

Update: Tuesday, January 17, 6:40 PM CST

There are conflicting reports on how many books were removed. Cara Rene, spokesperson for the Tucson Unified School District says:

"The books... have been moved to the district storage facility because
the classes have been suspended as per the ruling by Arizona
Superintendent (of) Public Instruction John Huppenthal,"

The Tempest was not removed. According to the news story at Arizona Central (Update, 1/29/2012: Listen to an audio discussion between Curtis Acosta, MAS teacher, and TUSD administrators, discussing how he can and can not teach Tempest),

Rene said the seven books removed from the classrooms were: "Critical
Race Theory" by Richard Delgado; "500 Years of Chicano History in
Pictures" edited by Elizabeth Martinez; "Message to AZTLAN" by Rodolfo
Corky Gonzales; "Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights
Movement" by Arturo Rosales; "Occupied America: A History of Chicanos"
by Rodolfo Acuña; "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire; and
"Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years" by Bill Bigelow.

The Tucson Unified School District website has a statement with contradictory statements about the books they boxed up. Below, I'm reproducing the statement in its entirety, and I am placing the contradictory statements inred. You can find the statement here. The copy below is accompanied with "Last updated: 01/17/2012 14:32:39".

Reports of TUSD book ban completely false and misleading

Tucson Unified School District has not banned any books as has been widely and incorrectly reported.

Seven books that were used as supporting materials for
curriculum in Mexcian American Studies classes have been moved to the
district storage facility because the classes have been suspended as
per the ruling by Arizona Superintendent for Public Instruction John
Huppenthal. Superintendent Huppenthal upheld an Office of Adminstriation
Hearings’ ruling that the classes were in violation of state law ARS
15-112.

The books are:

Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado

500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures edited by Elizabeth Martinez

Message to AZTLAN by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales

Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales

Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuna

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow

NONE of the above books have been banned by TUSD. Each book
has been boxed and stored as part of the process of suspending the
classes. The books listed above were cited in the ruling that found the
classes out of compliance with state law.

Every one of the books listed above isstill available to studentsthrough several school libraries.
Many of the schools where Mexican American Studies classes were taught
have the books available in their libraries. Also, all students
throughout the district may reserve the books through the library
system.

Other books have also been falsely reported as being banned by TUSD. It
has been incorrectly reported that William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”
is not allowed for instruction. Teachers may continue to use materials
in their classrooms as appropriate for the course curriculum. “The
Tempest” and other books approved for curriculum are still viable
options for instructors.

The suspended Mexican American Studies classes were converted last week
to standard grade-level courses with a general curriculum featuring
multiple perspectives, as per the directive by the state
superintendent. Students remained in classes with their teachers, who
are now teaching general curriculum.

As the district has taken action to comply with the order from the
state, the goal of the district has continued to be to prevent
disruption to student learning. Books used as instructional materials
in the former Mexican American Studies classes were collected only from
classrooms in schools where the courses were taught. Again, all the
books are still available to students through the TUSD library system.

In one instance, at Tucson High Magnet School, materials were collected
from a filing cabinet while students were in class though teaching did
not stop during the process.

Tucson High Magnet School Principal Dr. Abel Morado acknowledges that
the gathering of materials could have been accomplished outside of
class time in all instances.

“We had a directive to be in compliance with the law and acted quickly
to meet that need,” says Morado. “Part of that directive is
communicating with teachers, students and parents, and collecting
materials. We regret that in one instance materials were collected
during class time.”

5 comments:

As a k-12 librarian in a reservation school, I would include the books in this list in my libraries, but I differ on which libraries some of the titles belong in. There were two titles in the 5-6 level that are taught at our 7-8 grade level. They would be in our high school (7-12) library. Basically, our k-6 students don't have access to books written for adults in their library, though they can request books from the high school library. I could see how a school district could look at those age recommendations, and use that as an excuse to remove books, but I don't think these people are lodging their true complaints, they are just looking for an excuse to remove books. It's sad to see such blatant hatred legislated. Poor educators: Legislated to improve the success rates of Mexican Americans in their schools, but also legislated not to use a program that has proven to be effective.

Doesn't it seem that that is exactly the point of these actions? -- all across the nation, policymakers pretend to support good ideas, but act in ways that doom the programs to fail. As we went through the book list, my husband commented, "Fahrenheit 451."

To the TUSD Communication Director: By removing the books from the classroom, you ARE banning the teachers from using the books in their curriculum. And removing all other curriculum from the classroom and for youth to witness the removal of their opportunities to knowledge is openly admitting Intellectual Apartheid.

First Peoples listed my site as one of the Top Five Native Blogs and Podcast to follow. School Library Journal's Elizabeth Burns featured my site as her Blog of the Day on July 2, 2007, and in 2007, the ALA's Association for Library Service to Children invited me to write a blog post for their site.

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